


to go on

by lily_lovely



Category: Angel: the Series
Genre: Dark, M/M, Poetic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-04-26
Updated: 2009-04-26
Packaged: 2017-10-03 18:05:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,264
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20834
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lily_lovely/pseuds/lily_lovely
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Spike goes insane after getting his soul. How will he and Angel go on?</p>
            </blockquote>





	to go on

**Author's Note:**

> This rather blatantly ignore canon, or rather matches up S7 BtVS to S3-ish Angel to avoid Darla and Connor drama that weren't suited to the story.

**prologue**

Once upon a time, there were two vampires.

They were not in love.

In fact, they hated each other, and fought often. But their bond was close, as one had sired a vampire who had sired the other, and they roamed and hunted together for many years.

But one day, the elder of the two was cursed with a soul. He became plagued with guilt over the atrocities he had committed, and shunned the company of the other.

Although they thought of each other often, they rarely spoke in the ensuing years.

Until the younger went on a quest for a soul and received one.

It drove him mad as well, perhaps more so than the other.

This is their story.

***  
the full moon rises beneath your fingertips—howling into   
the smudged glass sweaty cracked—you   
feel haunted, weightless weighed down frozen   
numb burning

their voices call to you, shrieking twisting, the words wriggle   
under your flesh (a visceral howl)  
help me; don't no; i'll do anything please

they beg cry scream; you (the other you—   
the sparkless one)  
smile your feral grin sink into their necks rending skin   
into tatters until they're all broken dolls   
on twisted shelves in empty rooms

you try to forget to shake their silent eyes out   
((nothing helps))

you think of him—that other one—you finally understand   
why his brow was always   
wrinkled (furrows in the ground to   
place your bodies) his shoulders tense, dead ghoulish   
ghosts muttering their  
last words spilling their blood inside of him

you want to tell him that; that you feel them the paupers reaching—   
reaching up through you—until their outstretched   
hands rip out through your chest

how does he do it every day sitting in a chair as if   
anything means anything; can't even   
speak for the tangled-twisty   
emotions—stringing thoughts together takes so   
long—you lose the thread amidst   
agony's eternal chorus  
never find them again

now suddenly another   
thought comes through fully   
intact shining dully amidst the rubble of your mind

you shall go to him (you will go to him)  
and demand to know how he survives

***  
"Angel?" Fred pressed her hand against the phone to keep the other person from hearing. She looked at him expectantly.

Angel sighed, dropping a stack of papers onto the counter. "Look, despite what it may look like, I don't actually have time for every case that comes our way. You need to deal with it."

She shrunk back a little, but didn't back down. "It's...it's not a case. It's Spike."

Wrinkling her nose, she continued, "I think. He's talking kind of...you should talk to him."

Angel stood still for a moment, surprised to the point of blankness. Spike hadn't called him since...well, since he rang up with the news that he'd "shagged your ex, and did you know she's an animal in the sack?"

How long ago had that been? A year, two?

Spike was probably drunk and felt like slurring his words to someone who'd listen.

And Angel would listen. He had before, and he would now, even though he wasn't completely sure why.

He figured that the hate and anger between them didn't mean much in the end, when it came down to the things that mattered. Like listening to drunken rambles on the phone sometimes.

He walked over with an outstretched hand. "Thanks, Fred. I'll try not to be long."

She smiled at him, a little. "Take your time." And then she walked away, leaving him alone.

"Hello? Spike? What is it?"

_it's not like i thought—it burns. they scream at me; make it stop, i can't take this, it burns_

"What?"

_little girls are staring at me torturing me. it sings in my head—a bitter sad song—can you make it stop?_

Angel ran a hand through his hair. Normally when Spike was drunk he simply shouted about some fight he won in the 80s or described his recent sexual encounters. Angel had never heard him like this, wandering sentences and raw-throated like he'd been talking non-stop for days, but somehow it..._seemed_ familiar.

Like he'd heard the words before, but from someone else.

"Spike? What's going on? Where are you?"

_somewhere unclean; the rats like to stare at me. i'm so dirty. how can these things happen? i don't understand._

"And you're clearly not going to be much help here. I'll get my team to trace your call and we'll bring you back to the hotel, figure out what's going on. Okay?"

_i'll sit here in the damp, rotting away as the whispers flow through me—can you feel the way my spark matches yours? but they're not quite the same_

"I'll...be right over."

***  
you see their faces sometimes winking at  
you in the dark tattered and gleaming they shout  
at you (cry grumble nonsense whispers)

now they don't say anything, staring at   
you with the terrible look:   
help me save  
me or i'm lost.

you're lost. they lost you in a pile  
of bones; you shiver as the minerals  
of breathless sighs and final gasps seep into you

this hell is a space in your mouth you  
can't fill, a poison to swallow, a knife they endlessly  
turn in your gut. another life came before, you can't remember any of   
it—except old, ancient (eyes of petrified wood; musty sitting room   
breath; ragged long claws) on  
your chest breathing fire into your lungs,

then this   
darkness—this wet shaky unliving   
death that plagues you and will   
always be with you—it's gone everything's   
gone now   
(not even angels can save you)

you hear muffled feline footsteps, feel the feet try to   
lift you away with arms of sinewy stone. the dank place is   
tea, no sugar, but maybe the billowing coat men are  
no tea at all. you try to fight them, thrashing and snatching...maybe it's   
working—slithering pebbles falls over you and darkness is   
inside your eyes now; maybe the angels  
came after all

***  
"What's going on, chickpeas? Who's the cutie patootie?"

"Omigod, is that _Spike_? Since when do we harbor evil mass murderers, aside from, like, you?"

Angel rolled his eyes, shifting his grip on Spike's shoulders. "Lorne. Cordelia. It would have been nice to have you guys around when we were restraining the crazed vampire."

Gunn made a face. "Yeah, and speaking of, can we put this guy down? His feet are gross."

They maneuvered him onto the couch, where he lay limply.

Cordelia looked at him with evident distaste. "Uh, what exactly did you guys do to him? He seems kinda dead. And smelly."

Angel turned around and crossed his arms. "We had to give him a tranquilizer since he's, well, insane. Which, by the way, is why we're harboring him; he called the hotel, and then we tracked him to the sewers while you guys weren't around to help."

Gunn nodded. "He went real crazy when we tried to pick him up, too. Hence the drugging."

"We can't keep him here! What if it's part of some creepy plan to kill us? I mean, I was there in Sunnydale when he went all homicidal. It wasn't pretty," Cordelia said.

Angel's fierce look silenced whatever else she was about to say. "Look. He's drugged right now. He can't do anything. We'll tie him up and deal with the situation when he wakes up. Whatever's going on, we're the ones who have to handle it. Okay?"

She nodded, if a bit warily.

"Where are Fred and Wesley? We need everyone on this."

"They went out on a lunch break while you were gone. But, uh, Angelcakes, are we really supposed to help you tie him up?" Lorne waved a hand in front of his face. "He's cute as a button, and knowing the types you paled around with back in the day, I'm sure he's just as friendly, but he stinks to high heaven."

"I am _so_ not touching him with a twenty-five foot pole."

"Fine, whatever. Gunn?"

"I'm out on this one, man. Getting him here was bad enough."

"Okay, fine, _I'll_ do it."

***  
the darkness falls away at   
once: there's a weight keeping you down—it's  
scratchy, bobbing boats on a sunny pier mauled by   
snapping teeth—and you can't break free (you struggle   
struggle none of it helps nothing's working) you're dizzy,   
panting. a rigid cliff—how would my dark princess like her   
brains today?—under you and all around   
eyes that hear

you see him. you see your angel standing above you (no  
halo wings shiny supremacy, only his weapons:  
a glower, crossed arms) you've   
seen this before. laughter rolls under your tongue  
but no sound spills forth.

he stares, looking for a worm to pull   
out of your apple (you don't know   
which one) eyes and faces; strange and warped, crudely   
glistening, tears running down them. they start yelling at  
you (screaming howling raging victims) they cry—we're victims!—their faces   
change, covered in blood; you're screamingscreaming

SCREAMING

they're quieter now. the angel   
speaks; the words twist inside your  
gut until they curdle—burn. he's unhappy; you  
don't know why

the others shake their heads (a chorus of shrugs   
and don't knows) they circle you, menacing   
predators surveying their prey for weakness,  
grotesque twisted noses and bitter mouths; they ask you things in voices filled  
with petulance and dandelions with no petals only stems and no  
yellow

swirling, dancing now, they spin in front of you; a merry-go-round  
only without horses or music—metal manes painted with gore—and it's   
too much it's too...

"goddammit, spike, you have to sing or we can't figure out what's wrong with you."

his voice cuts through your chaos; you don't know why  
you need to sing but notes swell inside you; your mum's song...  
_oh never leave me_  
((young girl in a back alley—ripping hair, fondling—as you prepare to bite))  
_please don't deceive me_  
((tall shopkeep, leaning over the counter to show...you snap his neck))  
_how could you_  
((hundreds of railroad spikes through the faces' chests, blood running, thickly crusting over))  
_how could you?_

they stare; glinting eyes, their mouths, great  
gaping holes you're falling into.  
you look to him—the one who knows—and say,  
"help me angel, it burns"

***  
Angel retreated into his office and stared into the lobby, arms crossed, scowl firmly in place. He watched as Lorne whined dramatically about the trauma of experiencing Spike's past, as Cordelia pouted and sighed, as Gunn sat aside making sarcastic comments and watching Spike twitch, as Fred and Wesley came back from their break and exclaimed over the situation...

He turned away. He didn't want to see this right now.

Because while the others thought this was just another case, another bump-in-the-night to giggle over...Angel _knew_.

Spike had gotten a _soul_. He was forced to deal with all of the terrible, violent things he'd done. There wasn't going to be an easy fix to this; no quick wrap-up at the end of the day.

He would be dealing with this after they were all dead.

Assuming that Spike even survived. There were no other cases to consult, no textbook definitions. What if he had a completely different reaction from Angel's? What if it was too much?

As he stared at the various scratches on his worn desk and listened to the commotion outside his window, he realized, suddenly, fully: this was going to be his life from now on. Looking after Spike. Constantly dealing with him.

It was terrifying to understand that he might never do anything else, but it was something he needed to do. All the hate and anger burned away, and he could only remember the good times; hunting together, arguing agreeably over alcohol, satisfying their lust on the same victims, or each other.

Spike's request rang in his mind over and over again: _help me angel, it burns._

He couldn't really wrap his mind around any of it. He wasn't the only vampire with a soul, and Spike was asking him for help.

Nothing made sense anymore.

But he had to go back in and _make_ it make sense, because no one else could.

And so he left the office and stepped into the light.

***  
**epilogue**

_terror engulfs you, moisture clings to your skin; you feel wrong. you scrabble for the angel. he sighs and you cling_

Cordelia quit months ago, Lorne moved on to other things, and it was just Gunn, Fred, and Wesley running Angel Investigations. He could tell from the gaunt and tightened looks they wore that it was getting harder to keep it up.

But he didn't go with them. He couldn't.

_(cockroach teeth, snail shells shattering) you whimper, reach for him; he's not there_

he's not there

you don't realize you're screaming until he rushes in with desperation to quiet you

He didn't remember the last time Wesley looked at him without that bitter tinge of disappointment. Like he'd wasted himself.

But this was where he needed to be.

_he looks at you with mourning in his eyes. you wonder who died; you think it might have been you _

maybe it was him

He thought he'd given up on it all. On Spike's recovery, on his own chances of doing anything but acting as if Spike would recover.

But then Spike would smile at him, or give him a sudden, fierce kiss, and for awhile it was like he was full of purpose again.

He didn't know which feeling to believe, but he had to go on.


End file.
